


Christmas Oneshots 2016

by HyperKey



Series: Christmas shenanigans [2]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Oneshot, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-03 11:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 18,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8710147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperKey/pseuds/HyperKey
Summary: One oneshot a day from december 1st until december 25th!





	1. 1st December

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha~ I am doing this again.  
> Same deal as last year, one story a day until december 25th.  
> This time with Otasune. whoo~

It was a day like any other. Silent, soft rustling of book pages, the slight clicking of controller buttons, silent sound effects. Neither of them wanted to admit it, but boredom had finally sunken in. The days had gotten shorter and with it any activity that should have been watched died down to a minimum. On some days there was info that was worth looking into, usually though, nothing interesting happened all day. They had settled in a small apartment and they really didn’t feel the need for anything else.

The controller clicking stopped when a steaming mug was placed into cold hands. Coffee and pizza seemed to be the only thing that kept them going these days.

“You think there will be something happening soon?” A silent voice asked in slight anticipation.

“It’s the calm before the storm, Hal.” A heavy body settled down next to the younger man. Cold hands grasped the blanket that hat him covered the whole time.

Hal huddled closer to his friend, pulled his legs up to his chin to keep the cold out. “We should turn the heater on.” He suggested silently.

The reply was muffled by the coffee mug Snake held to his lips. “Then I have no excuse to get this close to you.”

Hal laughed silently at that. “Why would you need an excuse?” The reply to that was a low grumble that could have meant anything. Hal left it at that and just enjoyed the company of his friend; and the warmth. It really had gotten cold now. The seasons had changed so fast but with being as busy as they had been neither of them had noticed much.

“It’s kind of boring, isn’t it?” Hal eventually asked. There was never much to talk about these days. Snake wasn’t interested in video games and Hal didn’t care much for the newest weapons.

“I thought you wanted some quiet times.” Snake stated, still sipping his coffee.

“I know, but…” Hal trailed off, not sure how to finish his sentence.

Snake sat the mug down, a small smirk playing on his lips. “You got used to it.”

“No!” Hal protested immediately, but admitted defeat right away. “Yes- I mean maybe. We’ve moved around so much, always with our lives on the line- Yours more than mine but…”

“You got used to it.” Snake repeated.

Hal sighed in defeat. “Probably… I missed the quiet life… but now I miss the action.”

“Thought you had plenty of action in video games.” Snake teased.

Hal chuckled. “Maybe if my opponent wasn’t a computer.”

Snake lifted an eyebrow at that and carefully grabbed the spare controller as if it could break by the slightest touch. “One game.”

Hal smirked knowingly and nodded. “Sure.” One game became two and two became four until it was late in the evening and Snake remembered that he needed to call an informant back who had delicate information about a client they had worked for before.

Hal was content with the few games he had played with his friend; after all, it was a very rare occasion to even get the other man to play any game with him. It was easier to convince him to watch anime, yet snake usually fell asleep during those.

When Snake settle back down next to him he looked concerned. “Seems like they got in trouble.”

Hal sighed. It was always the same. He already prepared his mind to lose yet another informant. It wouldn’t be the first and not the last.

“Anything new though?”

“Told me to stand by in case of trouble. Seems like they’ll get the necessary information soon.”

 


	2. 2nd December

Morning came too early for Hal who was thrown out of bed by the frantic ringing of Snake’s cell phone. Its owner was nowhere to be seen, but considering that it was this early in the morning, Hal assumed it was rather important and grabbed the device. When he accepted the call the first thing he heard was gunshots. Then the voice of a man who sounded a lot like the informant for a certain case they had been on.

The man was dying, Hal just knew it. When they called like this, they were _always_ dying. He knew he could do nothing now, just patiently wait for the information this man was going to share.

“They found me.” Hal heard him hiss. Briefly he considered doing something to help him, but the past few times showed him that if help even got to them, it was always too late.

Where was Snake in a situation like this?

“I won’t make it-“ The gasping voice was something that pulled at Hal’s heart. He had never met the man in person, but still felt sort of attached. People dying because the wanted to help was such a terrible thing.

“I-It’s alright.” Hal tried to calm the man. “Is there anything you can tell me?” He hated to do this, this man was dead in a few minutes, and he needed to keep this about their work. What he really wanted was to comfort him.

“They don’t have an MG.”

Hal nodded to himself, sighed in defeat. All this work for naught and now their informant was dying without any reason. The engineer swallowed the lump in his throat, whispered a silent, “I’m sorry.” But he never got a reply.

Minutes passed and Hal was still listening to the gunshots and yells, even after the phone of the informant had obviously fallen to the ground. He hated dealing with death; it always seemed to follow him through everything he did.  Everything he wanted was to help, and so many innocent lives were lost.

There still was another informant for a different case; Hal hoped that they would at least survive that.

Over all this morning couldn’t have started worse, and Snake was nowhere to be found either. At least that seemed to solve itself when the front door unlocked and the smell of fresh bread and coffee filled the small apartment. Hal couldn’t feel happy about it.

Snake carried paper bags into the kitchen, set a coffee mug on the table next to Hal and settled down on a chair. Light colored eyes focused on Hal.

“They got one of our informants.” Snake stated, while looking at his friend.

Hal bit his lip and could only nod. It felt wrong to be sad about a person he had never known, but those dying for a cause like this seemed wrong too.

“They know the risk, Hal.” Snake sighed and placed a hand on his friends shoulder to comfort him. “

“What about the other…?” Hal asked then. That informant was young, his voice had suggested that even though it was distorted by some voice altering device, it was neither male nor female, but Snake had determined pretty early on that this person had to be a man.

“I don’t know.” Snake sighed deeply, a sad smile on his lips. “Come, eat something. If we mourn every informant like this we’ll never get to do anything.”

“You got something to do?” Hal asked hopefully. Something to do meant distraction.

Snake placed a newspaper on to the table. “Seems like we got a new job.”

Hal barely contained his relief that the days of boredom seemed to be over when he picked up the newspaper and noticed various letters had been marked with a pen. A coded message. He almost tipped his chair over when he grabbed pen and paper and started scribbling down the various letters he found.

 Snake had placed a plate with breakfast next to him and watched him do his work, while he seemed to be lost deeply in thoughts.

“I’m worried.” Hal muttered while he scribbled down various letters and numbers that made no sense to Snake at all.

“Now?” Snake asked in slight disbelief.

“As you said, this is the calm before the storm… and this message makes no sense to me.”

Snake slowly stood and leaned over Hal’s shoulder to take a better looks at his notes. He soon came to the conclusion that he couldn’t help his friend at all and settled back down on his chair. “Leave it be. Maybe it was a joke.”

Hal looked up at his friend, eyes wide in surprise. “You think… someone’s on to us?”

“Not yet. Don’t let your guard down though.”

Hal nodded slightly, he barely even left the apartment these days. Mostly because he dug up all the necessary info and put it all together for Snake, but also because he was afraid.

The engineer sighed and leaned back in his chair, surprised when the hand of his friend gently clasped around the pen he was holding. It took him a few seconds to realize that Snake was moving the pen over the paper. When he let go and Hal lifted the pen off the paper, he saw a tiny image, somewhat crippled and scrawled but Hal got what it was supposed to look like. A tiny heart.

When he looked up at snake again, all he got was a smug smile before Snake’s face disappeared behind his coffee mug.


	3. 3rd December

Hal froze while doing the dishes when the doorbell rang. No one had ever come to their door. No neighbor, no stranger. He peeked into the living room, frowned at Snake who seemed just as surprised, maybe a bit more collected about it. When Hal made no move to open the door, Snake stood from the couch, placed the book he was reading aside and slowly walked through the living room.

“Who’s there?” he asked cautiously. You could never be careful enough, and with all they had been through it was better to be safe than sorry.

When no immediate reply came, Snake prepared for an attack, then a silent female voice answered to his question. “My name is Miller, I am your neighbor-“

Snake frowned deeply now, neck hair standing up. The name was quite common, it was nothing to be surprised about, but he didn’t like it much. “What do you want?” Snake asked harsher than he had intended.

“I made too much cookies, I am sharing them with the whole house. Maybe, if you want some-“

Snake turned to Hal who tilted his head as if trying to think of an answer. “It’s rude not to… right?” he muttered more to himself than to his friend.

Snake slowly put a hand on the door handle and carefully opened the door just enough to see the face of an elderly woman with white curls and a warm smile. She was holding a platter with neatly stacked cookies and over all didn’t seem like a threat at all. Snake knew better than to be fooled by that.

“They’re fresh.” The woman smiled, gave the plate to the brunette man and squeezed his hand lightly when he took the plate.

“Thanks…” Snake muttered silently, still not sure if he could trust this woman. Seconds later he had closed the door and put the plate on the dining table. He wasn’t going to touch it. Could the rats eat it and die.

“You think they’re poisoned?” Hal asked silently when he walked up to his friend to look at the gift they had been given.

“I’m not thinking anything. I just don’t want cookies.”

Hal carefully removed the cover over the plate and took one of the cookies. “They smell like normal cookies.”

“That’s the point. You wouldn’t even know.”

“She’s our neighbor, Snake.”

“I don’t like her.”

Hal sighed in defeat. “You don’t even know her. Have you ever talked to her?”

“I don’t talk to anyone in this house except you.”

Hal shook his head, broke the cookie he was still holding in half and revealed a chocolate filling. “So there was something inside.” He commented with a smile and bit into the cookie.

“Tastes like a real cookie too.”

“Fine.” Snake grumbled and snatched the other half from Hal’s hands.

“We should thank her properly for this.”

“With what?”

Hal shrugged. “I don’t know… some self-made cake maybe?”

“I don’t know how to bake.”

“Me neither… but they have these things in stores where you just add milk or something.”

Snake looked at him skeptically. “And you think we’ll be able to do this without turning the kitchen into a battlefield?”

“Only if you don’t throw it at me like you did with the bread I made.”

“You mean with the bread you _tried_ to make. It was as hard as a rock.”

“You could have killed me with it.” Hal muttered.

“I didn’t, get over it.”

Hal gazed at the cracked tile in the kitchen, then turned back to Snake. “I think it’ll work out fine if we do what the instructions say.”

“I take your word for it, Hal.”


	4. 4th December

Snow was settling on the balcony, muffling sounds and brightening the early evening. Hal was still busy with the newspaper they had gotten, not getting any further with the message. By now he assumed it was a prank, but until he was completely sure he didn’t dare to put it away. Snake was busy on the phone, had only briefly told Hal that he was talking to one of their informants who had a lead on something Hal and Snake had looked for in almost two years.

Hal glared at the shaking pencil in his hand. Why was he so nervous anyway? Chances were that the informant couldn’t find it anyway. But that hope was crushed when Snake let the phone clatter onto the dining table  and settled down on the chair with a somewhat stressed sigh. He blew the imaginary hair out of his face and shook his head.

“He found her.”

“Her?” Hal echoed in confusion.

“The kid.”

The pencil fell out of Hal’s hand. “O-Olga’s child?”

Snake just nodded. “He wasn’t the one with the newspaper though.”

Light colored eyes focused on Snake. “So it’s a girl?”

“I guess so. He wouldn’t tell me where exactly. Just to ‘stand by’ and have a place ready for her.”

“You think he’s pulling something himself?”

Snake shrugged. “He seemed pretty reckless, considering the last few times I talked to him.” He grabbed his cigarettes and opened the balcony door, cold air gushing in, making Hal shiver. “It’s a miracle he’s still alive.” Snake muttered after he had lit the cigarette and leaned against the window from the outside.

“Does this guy have a name or anything?”

Snake shook his head. “He wouldn’t even give me a codename.”

“There aren’t many who knew about Olga’s child.” Hal muttered to himself. “You think the girl is alright?”

Snake turned around and looked at his friend through the window. “She seems to be alive, that’s all he told me.”

Hal picked up the pencil again, now it was shaking more than before. “He wants to bring her here?”

Snake walked back into the living room after brushing the snow off of him and closed the door. “Apparently. We’ll see what we’ll do when she actually shows up here.”

“You want to-“

Snake shook his head. “You think we could provide a good environment for a kid?”

Hal hung his shoulders in defeat. “We’re doing dangerous work, the apartment is small and there’s no way we’ll stay here for longer than a year. On top of that we’re both guys who…”

“Who what?” Snake lifted an eyebrow with a small smirk on his lips.

“What would an outsider even call this… this… relationship?”

Snake chuckled and pulled his chair closer to Hal. “Does it matter what they think?”

“No… not really. But-“

Snake grasped Hal’s free hand and kissed the cold back of it. “If they have a problem with it, they can go to hell. Life’s too short to be worried about things like that.”

Hal stared at his friend, his pale face now showing a significant red on the cheeks. “Y-yeah.”

Snake chuckled silently. “What are you blushing for?”

Hal hung his head in defeat, gently let it sink down on snake’s shoulder. “You did it out of nowhere again.”

“Didn’t you tell me it’s boring when I always ask?”

Hal flattened himself against his friend, when he realized he had lost this argument. “I’m sorry.”

Snake gently flicked the side of his head. “Don’t be sorry.”

“Sorry-“

“You’re a lost cause, Hal.” A warm arm wrapped around the back of the engineer, the answer to that was two arms wrapping around Snake.

“You too, Dave.”


	5. 5th December

Hal was going to walk a hole into the carpet if he kept pacing like that. Snake shook his head at his friend and returned to read the rubbish the news paper was talking about. He didn’t believe any of the crap they wrote down there but it distracted him from the incident that caused Hal to pace like that. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous as well, however all his experience taught him how to keep it level and well hidden.

“What if something happened?” Hal asked for what felt like a hundred times now.

Snake didn’t even look up from the news paper at this point. “He said he’ll be here soon.”

“That was three hours ago!” The younger man snapped back. “He could’ve at least messaged us!”

They were both anxiously waiting to hear about the informant who had the information of the child they had been looking for, for so long.

Snake sighed, straightened the crumpled edges on an article he had read at least ten times now. “You know how this is. Sometimes it’s just not possible...”

“But-“

“Otacon…” Snake muttered now, was about to lecture him again about how he really needed to keep things together when the younger male interrupted him.

“What if something happened?”

Snake grumbled in annoyance. He was getting fed up with Hal’s behavior. Of course something could have happened. But without a way to tell if that was the case or not, he decided to keep a cool head and just be ready in case things got serious.

-

Five hours later Snake was nervously tapping his foot on the carpeted floor of the apartment. Hal had retreated with a cup of coffee and played video games to keep his head together. By now he was sure that something had gone wrong. There was no message, no life sign and certainly no one at their door.

It was dark outside now, their apartment only lit by an old lamp in the far corner of the living room and the TV screen with Hal’s game. Snake stretched and grabbed the packet of cigarettes, was half way to the balcony when there was a rather urgent sounding knock on the door.

Snake froze and Hal paused the game, the noises of his game dying down instantly. Out of a habit Snake grabbed a gun and inched closer to the door. After that neighbor had showed up, he just assumed that no one else could be friendly around here.

“You think that’s him?” Hal whispered.

Snake shrugged as he put one hand on the door handle and ripped the door open to point the gun at a person’s masked face. A small child was fidgeting, wrapped in a blanket and obviously not happy about being there.

Before Snake could say anything the child was shoved into his arms and the person turned around to leave. That was when Snake noticed a bleeding wound on the man’s side. It wasn’t patched up properly, probably done in a hurry. In a flash he had grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him inside, then shut the door.

“What are you-!” The man hissed, voice distorted likely due to the mask. It was the same indistinct voice Hal and Snake had heard in the message sent over eight hours ago. The person was definitely male, although his figure could have suggested otherwise to the untrained eye. The mask covered the entire head, eyes almost invisible. No wonder the child wanted to get away from him.

“Were you followed?” Snake asked, towering over the other, even though their height difference was insignificant.

“No.” the male hissed back, the mask distorting his voice enough that Snake had to guess what the man had said.

Hal had already procured the first aid kit- the blood dripping to the floor was hard to miss- and switched it for the child Snake was still holding. The child, unmistakably a girl, stared at him with wide brown eyes, not quite sure if she should be scared or not. Her hair was a very light blond. No doubt it was Olga’s child. How old was she? Three? Four?

He freed her from the blanket she was wrapped in, frowned at the thrown together and not quite fitting clothing. Hal had went out to hastily grab some clothing they could give a child and had it packed away neatly in their closet just a day ago. There was blood on the girl’s face, but he soon realized that it wasn’t from the girl but rather from the man who had carried her.

 “What’s your name?” he asked after he sat the girl to the ground, smiled at her and tried to take away her fear. If she was afraid at all. She looked curious, but her eyes kept wandering to the man still standing at the door.

“You’re staying with us now.” Hal informed her.

The girl’s brows knitted together in confusion. She had understood the meaning of these words and Hal felt heartbroken at her longing gaze to the man at the door. Said man was currently wrestling Snake away from him as the older male tried to dress the wound to his side.

“No.” The girl said firmly and quickly scampered over to the man that had brought her here. She clung to his leg and both he and Snake froze at the action.

“No.” She glared at Hal who had stood to walk over to them.

“I explained already.” The unknown man told the girl. “I can’t take you with me.”

“S-s-sunny, not sta-staying.” The girl protested.

“Sunny…” the man crouched down next to her, suppressed a pained hiss and clutched his side. “It is dangerous to stay with me, I already explained this to you. You understand that, don’t you?”

“No!” Sunny grabbed his jacket as tightly as she could and refused to let go. “S-Sunny… sta-stays with Jack.”

Snake took a step back when the man visibly flinched at the name. He then lifted an eyebrow and turned to Hal who frowned in confusion.

“Jack?” Snake echoed.

Sunny huddled herself closer to the young man, as if that was going to change anything. The man himself sighed in defeat and removed the mask. When it clattered to the ground Snake shook his head with a slightly amused smirk and Hal’s eyes widened in sudden realization.

“Why the disguise?” Hal asked silently as he slowly came closer, no longer wary of the young man. Jack certainly was no one he feared.

“They’re looking for me, in case you’ve forgotten.” Jack hissed and carefully pried Sunny’s small hands off of him.

The girl glared at him, grasping his shirt again with no intention of letting go of him. “We’re safe here, Sunny.” He tried silently. “I told you about them, they’re friends. Otacon has Videogames.”

That seemed to convince the girl to take a better look at the TV, while Snake was busy to help Jack back to his feet who yelped in pain when he was dragged over to the couch. “How’d that happen?”

The older man asked while he took scissors from the first aid kit and cut the shirt into ribbons.

“It’s just a flesh wound-“

“You’re still bleeding all over the place.” Snake grumbled and ripped the makeshift bandage off the wound.

Jack hissed but didn’t say any more when Snake gazed at the wound. “And you’re absolutely sure no one followed you?” the older male asked as he poked at the wound.

“The bullet is out already- Stop it!” Jack hissed and clawed at Snakes hand to get him away from the injury. “I took care of those who followed- Don’t worry, Sunny didn’t see any of it.”

“Sunny. Is that her actual name?”

Jack shrugged. “That’s the name she told me.”

“Sunny is Sunny.” The girl protested silently while she fumbled around with the controller of Hal’s play station. Said person was eyeing her as if she was a bomb that could go off any second.

Snake nodded silently, proceeded to patch his friend up in a more professional way and slapped the back of his head. “You’re reckless, kid.”

Instead of replying, Jack just looked away and took the scolding without having any reaction to it. Snake suddenly felt guilty. He hadn’t seen him like that before. Of course Jack had lost his cool a few times, but a few comforting words had been enough. Snake wondered what has going on now.

“You need a place to stay?” Snake tried, hoped his guess was right.

“I’m fine.”

“Jack h-hasn’t e-eaten anything.” Sunny helpfully informed the two men that were about to become her foster family. “N-not even ch-ch-cheese-bu-burger.”

Snake caught the glare Jack gave the girl and whacked his head again. “See, she knows what’s good for you.”

“She doesn’t know anything.” Jack growled.

“And here I thought having a kid would make people more understanding.” Hal muttered under his breath and flinched badly when Jack suddenly jumped to his feet, made the first aid kit clatter to the ground and its contents spill over the carpet, then grabbed the mask and turned around to the three, face red in anger and eyes glistening with tears.

“Jack-“

“You don’t know **anything**!” he shouted at them, gripped the door handle and was already halfway out the door when Snake grabbed his arm and forced him back in with a strength that had the younger man stumble into the man’s arms.

Snake froze when Jacks hands clawed his shirt and barely suppressed sobs escaped him. “You don’t know anything.” He repeated, this time silent and drowned in tears.

Snake kicked the door shut and wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands when he rested them on the younger male’s back in a failing attempt to console him. Helplessly he looked over to Hal, confused and overwhelmed with the situation. He could deal with temper tantrums and rage fits, but this was a little too much. He knew Jack was more emotional than he should have been, yet this reaction seemed so out of nowhere that he couldn’t piece it together at all.

Now that he had his arms loosely wrapped around the younger man, he also noticed that he seemed significantly thinner than he used to be. Just what had been going on in the time they hadn’t spoken to each other? The few times they had contacted each other was to relay information, there was never time to talk about private things. Not that they did that much anyway.

“Sunny-“ Hal muttered, mostly to break the silence, “Do you want to eat something?”

Snake watched the two leave for the kitchen- Sunny must’ve agreed to the offer. With a heavy sigh he patted Jack’s back, mostly to get him to stop clinging to him as if he was the last thing he could grab before falling into an abyss. “If you wanna talk about it, kid-“

“No.” Jack growled, quickly let go of the man.

Snake felt something close to pity rise inside him. The kid looked like he needed some sleep, food wouldn’t hurt either. The blue eyes looked so pale and pained in the reddened face.

“You’re not leaving until you ate something.” Snake then declared.

Jack scoffed. “I brought the girl here. My job is done.”

“I don’t know what happened, but blaming yourself will not change anything.” Snake tried.

The younger male smirked humorlessly. “You don’t know anything.” He repeated yet again.

Both men turned when Hal left the kitchen with a steaming bowl of the soup he had thrown together earlier. He wasn’t great at cooking; that was all he could do. Snake was already complaining about it, but this bowl wasn’t for the older man.

Jack was about to refuse the food, but when Snake glared at him, he just took it and walked back to the couch. That was when Snake noticed the limp of the younger man. He wondered why this hadn’t caught his attention before but decided to leave it be for the time being.

-

Snake and Hal then went about their business, which was to get to know Sunny a bit better. They quickly learned that while Sunny had trouble speaking she understood the world around her to a point at which Hal wasn’t sure anymore if this girl really was only four years old. She had quickly located Hal’s laptop and was researching things Hal had never even heard about.

Proud, yet a little intimidated he sat down next to Sunny and talked her into trying one of his games. The girl was occupied with that for twenty minutes, then she went back to research.

“Sunny, how was the place you were at before like?” He asked silently, unsure about the whole thing. Jack certainly wasn’t going to tell him anything. The man had been silently sitting on the couch, staring holes into the wall for about an hour now. For a moment Hal had thought something was wrong, but the man was fully aware of his surroundings. Maybe he just had a lot to think about.

Instead of replying with her own voice Sunny typed into a text document. Her fingers flew over the keyboard at a speed that even surprised Hal.

_‘I don’t know. Jack gave me a blanket.’_

Hal frowned. “And before he showed up?”

_‘I don’t know.’_

The scientist quickly decided that he wasn’t going to get a decent answer like that. He decided to wait a little longer before he asked her again. Meanwhile he gave her the clothing he had bought specifically for her and showed her the bed Snake had put together just for her. Sunny went to bed without saying anything, but Hal had the strange feeling that she wouldn’t stay there.

Things did settle down at eleven in the night, Jack still sitting on the couch, empty bowl in his hand, unmoving. When Snake grasped the bowl to take it to the kitchen the pale hands tightened around it and a blond head lifted to stare at him in confusion.

Snake let go of the bowl and crouched down, resting one hand on the other male’s shoulder. “Stay here, Kid. For the night, get some sleep.”

The blue eyes casted to the ground again. “I can’t.”

Hal silently cleared his throat to direct the focus to him. “It really is okay. There’s enough space for one more person-“

“You wouldn’t want me here at night.” Jack then muttered, his words having some sort of resignation to them.

“Nightmares.” Snake concluded. “Just rest a bit, you look terrible, kid.”

Snake hid the triumphant smile that wanted to cross his face, when Jack nodded and handed him the bowl. As he took the object to the kitchen, Hal had walked back into the bedroom to get a pillow and a blanket and moved them to the living room. Snake fumbled with the package of cigarettes in his pocket, really needed a smoke. That was what he told himself. In truth he was curious about why Jack was acting the way he did. The kid wasn’t the most talk active when it came to personal things, yet him being so unusually distant seemed to have some other, bigger reason.

On the other hand the kid had brought the girl here. Safe and Sound, maybe a bit shaken up. Snake would have lied if he had said that he didn’t like the company of an actual child. Children had a different approach to the world, were more open minded and generally friendly. Of course there were always exceptions.

Deeply lost in thoughts Snake finished washing the dishes and headed for the balcony to smoke. It was raining, the streets below illuminated by street lights and headlights of cars. A few windows were still lit but overall it was dark and unusually silent. He liked nights like that. Every time it rained it felt as if it washed away some of the cruelty of the world, before it would appear again worse than ever before.

He took a drag on his cigarette as he peeked back into the living room, watched the rare guest on the couch. Snake smirked to himself. It hadn’t taken five minutes for the young man to fall asleep. His eyes wandered over to Hal who was now sitting on the ground with his laptop as his usual place on the couch was occupied.

Snake took his time with the smoke, but even that had to end and so he returned into the living room, left the balcony door open for a moment longer and he walked past Hal and brushed his fingertips over the brown hair of the man who had gotten so much more close than any other person had ever managed. Hal reached for his pants and halted him, blue eyes stared in anticipation. Snakes eyes cautiously wandered to the occupant of the couch before he crouched down and got dangerously close to Hal’s face.

“Will Sunny understand this…?” Hal whispered, gasped in slight surprise as Snakes cold hands touched his face. “I don’t care.” Snake whispered back. Their noses almost touched now, neither of them closing the gap between their lips. There still was something they needed to talk about.

“She’ll ask questions-“ Hal protested.

Snake shrugged, cold hands wandering through the brown hair of the other man. A smile found its way to Hal’s face and in a daring move he finally got close enough to touch Snake’s lips with his own. It was rather rare that they got this close, between saving the world and helping out people there was barely any time for private moments like that. Maybe that was what made them so special for the two.

“She’ll accept it.” Snake whispered after they had separated from each other. Soon after that both of them went to bed, huddled together in the cold bedroom with thoughts about Sunny and how to continue their strange life.

 

                                                                                             

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the reason why it's AU.  
> and very OOC... but i didn't want to rewrite it...
> 
> I'm sorry I just can't keep raiden out of any story.... FITE MEH


	6. 6th December

When Snake entered the living room in the morning it was empty. There was a note scribbled on the old newspaper, the blanket neatly folded and pillow on top. Snake shook his head to himself. The note had hastily scrawled letters on it that probably meant ‘thanks’, but it could have meant anything else too.

He didn’t bother to dwell on whatever the kid was going through. He now had to deal with other things. And so he went to the kitchen to make coffee and froze in plate when he saw the girl sitting at the dining table on top of a folded blanket with one of Hal’s laptops, typing into it rapidly.

“Good morning?” He muttered to the girl, slightly confused as to why she was awake this early and how she had left the bedroom without him noticing.

“M-m-morning.” Sunny muttered back without ever taking her eyes off the screen.

“What are you doing?” Snake asked, wondering about this since he had noticed her. A kid her age should have been playing with toys, he assumed. Not that he had had a normal childhood to compare. Hal could have had better insight on that, yet Snake wasn’t too sure what Hal’s childhood looked like either. He had never asked.

“Chess.” Sunny informed him and when Snake looked at the screen he saw that she was indeed playing chess against the computer.

“Is boring, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Sunny nodded in agreement.

“Do you want to play chess against a real person?”

Sunny looked up from the screen, her eyes holding some sort of excitement. “I-I P-p-played against re-real p-p-people.”

“And they were bad?”

Sunny huffed and nodded her agreement.

Snake smiled at her- it was so easy to be friendly to this girl- and turned to the coffee machine. “How about you turn that thing off and I show you how real chess is played.”

“Y-y-you can?”

“I play against Hal sometimes.”

Sunny hummed silently and turned the laptop off. While she shuffled off the chair to return the laptop to where she had found it, Snake poured himself a cup of coffee and placed the wooden chess game on the dining table. When Sunny returned, she stared at it as if it was not from this world. Carefully she reached out to the figures and looked at them from every angle.

“Never seen a real chess board before?” Snake jokingly asked and was shocked when Sunny shook her head.

“Th-th-they had n-nothing like this.”

“They?”

“Th-the b-b-bad p-people. Jack s-s-said they a-are bad.”

“He’s probably right about that. You know where he went, by the way?”

“H-Home, he s-said.”

Snake smiled while he sipped his coffee and watched Sunny set up the game. “His kid’s probably around your age now.”

“Jack h-has no ch-children.” Sunny stated when she placed the queen to the designated place.

Snake almost choked on his coffee. “W-What? Did he say that?”

Sunny watched him with her brown eyes, nodded. “Jack s-said h-he w-was g-going to be a d-dad. But ‘bad th-things h-happened’ and n-now h-he’s not.” Sunny shrugged.

“Why did he tell you that?” Snake wondered aloud. Jack wasn’t the person to tell anyone about his issues.

“I-I a-asked if he ha-had children.”

Snake set the mug on the table and ran a hand through his hair. “No wonder he acted like that…” he muttered to himself.

Sunny tilted her head in confusion, but didn’t bother to ask about it when she made the first move with her chess piece. They go pretty far with their game when Hal entered the kitchen with a yawn and headed for the coffee machine without even noticing the two other occupants of the kitchen.

“Morning.” Snake muttered to his friend when he made the last move on the board. “Checkmate.”

Instead of having the reaction Snake expected from a girl who had just lost an intense game of chess, Sunny’s eyes widened and a big smile appeared on her face. “I l-lost!”

“You did. Wanna play again?”

Sunny shook her head, kidnapped snake’s queen and headed back to the living room where she had put the laptop.

Hal settled down on the chair the girl had just sat on and eyes the game curiously. “This girl is a genius.”

“She lacks experience.”

“She’s only ever played with npcs-“

Snake shook his head. “She talks like a grown up, ignoring that stutter. Acts like one too. If she was a few feet taller you wouldn’t even know how old she is.”

Hal stirred his coffee thoughtlessly. “You think they did something to her…?”

“You think they did not?” Snake asked with a slight edge to his voice. “She hacked your password on the laptop, by the way.”

Hal sighed. “Yeah, I know…”

“A normal kid would have just asked.”

“I like her.” Hal tried to argue.

“I like her too, but that’s not the point.”

“You think she could be dangerous?” Hal asked silently.

“If we don’t pay attention. She’ll probably do it unintentionally, but she could get us in trouble.”

“Then we just have to explain!” Hal hissed, tried hard to keep his voice silent so the girl wouldn’t hear their conversation. “She’s smart enough to understand that…”

“But is this really a good idea?”

Hal hung his head. “We knew her mother…?”

Snake sighed, reached for his mug again when he saw Sunny standing in the doorway, laptop clutched in her tiny hands and her eyes wide with an expression between confusion and sadness. Snake winced at her face. He hadn’t meant to upset her, was about to apologize when Sunny spoke.

“Jack s-said he knew m-m-my m-m-mother t-too.”

“He did.” Snake muttered. “Want to hear more about her?”

Sunny chewed on her lip and nodded slowly. “…D-do you have a m-mother?” she directed at the two.

“My mother died when I was little.” Hal told her silently.

“A-and you?” Sunny turned to Snake, came a few steps closer. Snake grabbed her around the waist and set her on his lap. His wasn’t sure why he did it, but it felt natural to do so. “I don’t know my mother.”

A strange smile crossed Sunny’s features. “L-l-like me. I w-will n-never meet h-her.”

“What games do you like to play?” Hal then asked to finally change the topic.

“Chess.” Sunny told him.

“How about the one you played yesterday?”

“Th-the AI is s-slow. I-It was t-too easy.”

Hal sighed. “I’ll see if I can find a decent game for you. Does that sound okay?”

Sunny nodded. “Uh-huh!”

 


	7. 7th December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to catch up with project deadlines, the next few chapters may be a little shorter.

Sunny slowly shuffled into the kitchen, attracted by a sweet smell she couldn’t place.  It seemed unusual and a little threatening to her. The place she came from had always smelled the same. There had never been anything out of the ordinary. Even being in a room with other people was new to her. She hadn’t quite realized that until now, everything almost a shock to her, as it was happening so fast. She barely had time to understand what Jack explained to her before she was already at the place with the new people, who seemed kind, but also a bit scary to the young girl.

Now she was peeking into the kitchen, watched what Hal was doing. He cursed silently from time to time and didn’t seem to notice her at all. It wasn’t until the other occupant of the apartment entered the kitchen, that Hal noticed Sunny standing there.

“If it tastes the way it smells, it’s good.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it, but I did exactly what the instructions said.” Hal informed his friend and smiled at Sunny when he crouched down and held a bowl out to her. “My mother always let me have the rest of the batter, when she made cake.”

Sunny reluctantly took the bowl, unsure what to do with it. Snake gave her a spoon. “You’re supposed to eat it.”

Sunny’s small brows furrowed and she stood there, unable to process what the two wanted her to do. She didn’t understand until Snake showed her, then she quietly retreated unto a corner of the Kitchen and carefully cleaned the bowl, the spoon scraping over the metal, making a sort of distinct sound, Hal thought he wouldn’t forget this fast.

 When he checked on the cake in the oven Snake came closer and frowned slightly. “It looks nice.”

Hal nodded his agreement, but he didn’t seem too convinced. “It’s almost done… We should check if it tastes good before we bring it over.”

“I h-h-have n-n-never had c-cake b-before.” Sunny muttered from her corner and when both men turned she stood and brought the bowl over to the sink. She was barely tall enough to but the bowl on the counter before she shoved it into the sink. Hal made a mental node to buy a small footstool for her to stand on. The girl seemed willing to help with chores and hoped she wouldn’t get bored of it as fast as everyone else did.

Sunny held up three fingers and pointed to the oven with the other hand. “We c-could k-keep three.”

“One for everyone.” Snake muttered. Sunny nodded quickly and smiled brightly.

 


	8. 8th December

CHOS Dec 8

Sunny stared at the pink package Snake held out to her as if it was from another world. To Hal it looked like one of these play sets for little children. It had plastic teacups and all that. The main color of it was pink, accentuated with turquoise and other bright colors that hurt the eyes when looked at for too long.

Sunny slowly reached out for the package. “I-is this f-for me?”

Snake nodded with a warm smile. “If you don’t want it I can take it back to the st-“

Before he had even finished, Sunny snatched the packed from his hands and hugged it like a plush toy. Hal made a mental note to look for something like that for Sunny.

“You’re supposed to say thank you, Sunny.” Hal reminded her. While she didn’t do it intentional she lacked basic manners a four year old should have had in his opinion. Not that he knew many children at that age.

“Th-Thank you.” Sunny muttered in Snake's direction, then proceeded to stare at the package.

“It’s something to play with, you have to take it out.” Snake explained.

Sunny frowned and stared at him as if he had said something unforgivable.

“I saw th-this in an-an a-advertisement.” Sunny explained. “The chi-children in T-TV…”

Snake nodded. “Wanna open it?” He suggested while he fumbled for the combat knife in his pants. Hal instantly darted for a pair of scissors to keep damage and injury to a minimum and handed that to Snake.

Snake smirked at him. “Don’t trust me with knives?” He muttered in a teasing matter. Hal only sighed and shook his head.

He watched as Snake unpacked the play set for Sunny and how the girl grasped a tiny pink plastic cup and stared at it like she had done with the chess pieces not too long ago. “I-It is very sm-smoooth.” She commented and put the cup back on the coffee table, when knelt down in front of it and crossed her small arms on the table.

“And p-pink.”

“You don’t like pink?” Snake asked when he placed a turquoise colored cup on the table.

Sunny shoved the pink cup away to take the other and nodded slightly. “It i-is a p-painful c-c-color.”

“I know, right?” Snake smiled at her and took out all the turquoise colored parts and shoved the pink back in the box.

“W-Wait!” Sunny then exclaimed. “Th-there is o-o-only two c-cups. U-uncle Hal n-n-n-needs one t-too!”

“Hal gets a pink cup?” Snake asked and smiled when sunny Nodded eagerly.

“T-there is n-not enough o-o-other colors.”


	9. 9th December

Hal watched Sunny sitting in front of the TV watching questionable cartoons. He really didn’t want her to watch this but there was nothing else he could do to entertain this girl. She had discarded the play set already. It was neatly packed away in a corner of the living room, most likely to never be touched again. He remembered how Emma treated her toys the same way. A faint sting ran through his body when he thought of his sister.

Snake was busy putting together that footstool he had bought earlier and kept complaining about how hard it could be to put together something so tiny.

“You could have bought a plastic one-“

“I don’t trust plastic.” Snake shot back.

Hal smiled thinking about something very different when Snake’s expression fell and he deadpanned at his friend. “You’re not thinking what I think you are…”

Hal laughed silently and shook his head. “I probably am.”

The engineer ducked away from a piece of flying cardboard while he continued to laugh.

Sunny had now noticed the commotion and watched the two from the couch. She had turned around and leaned over the backrest to see what these two were doing.

“Wh-why a-a-are you l-laughing?”

“Nothing.” Snake immediately said, triumphantly placed the footstool on the ground only to watch it fall apart yet again.  He was about to throw the thing off the balcony when Sunny scrambled off the couch and hurried over to him. She looked through the instructions and took it completely apart again and looked at Snake as if she wanted to tell him that he was hopeless for being unable to put together something as simple as this.

Hal had left him alone with it after Snake had insisted that he could build it together on his own, so he let him be.

“Snake.” Sunny sighed as if she was scolding a child. “Y-you’re su-supposed to p-p-put the s-s-screws in there.” The girl pointed at the holes in the wood. And shook her head with a sigh when she grabbed the screwdriver and build the thing together on her own.

Hal was impressed to say the least. She not only understood the instructions, she could also follow them through without getting confused. This was way over the level of a four year old. Not to mention the fact that she was already able to read and write and knew words Hal himself rarely even used.

“D-d-done!” Sunny exclaimed after what felt like two minutes, then she shoved the footstool back to Snake. “Y-you need t-t-to-“ Sunny handed him the screwdriver, expected him to understand what she wanted him to do.

“She doesn’t have the strength.” Hal explained when Sunny didn’t.

Snake sighed, took the screwdriver and tightened the screws in the piece of furniture. Once that was Done sunny took the object and carried it back to the couch with her. Hal came closer to see what she was doing with it, and then saw it standing next to her on the couch, one of her arms around it.

Snake lifted an eyebrow at that. Hal only smiled.

“I thought kids only played with toys.” Snake muttered slightly confused.

Hal shrugged. “Maybe she likes it because you gave it to her.”

“You think she likes me?” Snake asked, even more confused sounding now.

Hal nodded. “Why not?”

“Why do _you_ like me?” Snake wanted to know then, face serious.

Hal hung his shoulders in defeat. “I just do. You’re…” He felt his cheeks reddening. “Don’t make me say this-“

“What if I do?” Snake poked his side, made him flinch away with a squeal.

“Just don’t!” Hal laughed when Snake proceeded to tickle him and he tried to back away into the kitchen in hopes of being let off the hook then.

“Stop!” Sunny suddenly yelled from the couch. She was standing on it, the stool in her hand waving it around dangerously. Both men turned to her, wondering what she was trying to say.

“S-stop h-h-hurting U-u-uncle Hal!”

“Sunny-“ Snake tried but the glare in her face was unforgiving. She had genuinely thought that he was trying to hurt Hal.

“Sunny,” Hal then muttered. “Snake didn’t hurt me.”

“Y-you s-screamed.” Sunny pouted, kept glaring at Snake.

While snake tried to find words to recover from this misunderstanding, Hal had walked over to Sunny, snatched her off the couch by snaking one arm around her waist and started tickling her instead. Instantly she squealed and flailed to get away. The stool fell out of her hands and her laughter echoed from the walls.

After a moment Hal stopped and let Sunny regain her breath. The girl stared at Snake now while still being held.

“That’s what I did to Hal.” Snake explained with a shrug.

“Th-that wa-was funny.” Sunny said with a wide grin and demanded to be tickled again by Hal.


	10. 10th December

Sunny grumbled in annoyance when Snake pulled the woolen hat deeply into her face. She batted his hand away, but only received a warning glare. “You’ll freeze if you don’t dress warm enough. Trust me I lived in Alaska for a while, I know how unpleasant that is.”

Sunny huffed, plucked at the gloves on her hands. She didn’t get why Snake wanted her to go outside this badly. So far she had no pleasant memories of the outside world and she was not quite sure if this experience would change her opinion of it.

Snake taking her hand and letting her walk on her own was a nice surprise though. Jack had carried her the whole time and she had really become upset at it over time. She could walk on her own!

“A-a-are there b-b-bad p-p-people?” Sunny then asked when Snake patiently waited for her to get down the stairs. She took her time with it, unfamiliar with how to conquer that frightening thing properly.

Snake sighed. “Everywhere. But I’ll be with you, so you don’t have to worry.”

“W-where are we g-g-going?”

“To the store. Getting groceries.”

Sunny carefully made her way downstairs and slipped her hand into Snake’s once she had reached him. “Okay.” She agreed silently, half her face disappearing when the hat slipped over her eyes. With a grumble she shoved it back up, making it slip off in the process.

Snake picked it up and put it back in her head. “It’s a bit big for you, hm?”

Sunny nodded slightly, but soon that didn’t matter anymore when she followed Snake outside into the snow covered streets. She blinked at the brightness of the snow, having only seen it at night before. It also made funny noises when stepped on, she noticed.

Quickly she let go do snake and proceeded to walk circles around him to make the funny noise. It was fun to do that and she wanted to keep doing it forever when Snake continued to walk and she had to follow him.

Once they had crossed the streets Sunny was almost ran over by a dog about the same size as her. She landed on her butt in the snow and stared at the dog, not knowing if she should be surprised or scared. She felt her eyes water when Snake picked her up and sat her back to her feet.

“I’m so sorry!” a woman yelled as she hurried over to them.

Sunny watched Snake shake his head and hold his hand out for the dog to sniff on it. Then he patted its back a few times and continued to walk. Sunny followed him closely, a little uneasy about all this now. There were a lot of people she didn’t know and Jack had told her that bad guys had been chasing them. What if they were still looking for her?

She gripped snakes hand a little tighter and hid behind him, hoping that the bad people would not see her.

“Sunny…” Snake muttered after a while. “I can’t walk properly if you cling to me like that…”

Sunny instantly let go of his hand, but kept walking very closely to him.

When they reached the store Sunny was overwhelmed by the amount of people and high shelves full of colorful items. She had never seen something like that in real life.

Without realizing it she was clinging to Snake again, tiny gloved hands digging into the fabric of his pants. She almost squeaked when Snake picked her up and sat her into the cart he had gotten. Sunny wasn’t too happy about being confined in the tiny space, but she definitely liked that it kept the other people away. Snake wouldn’t keep her in there, right?

But with that thought she was suddenly full of fear. Would Snake bring her back to the place Jack had taken her from? She had taken a liking to being around Hal and Snake, loved that they actually talked to her, that they gave her hugs and were kind to her. Had Snake enough of her now? Because she had yelled at him the previous day?

She bit her trembling lip when Snake put colorful items into the cart. She couldn’t see them properly through her tears.

“You okay?” Snake asked silently and gently when Sunny pulled the hat over her eyes to hide that she was crying. She wasn’t allowed to cry. She had always been scolded when she did, Snake would do that too, wouldn’t he?

She flinched when the hat was pulled from her head, leaving her light colored hair standing up in all directions. Instantly she lowered her head and hid her face in her hands, trying to get rid of the flood of tears. “What are you crying for?” Snake didn’t sound angry, but he also didn’t sound too friendly now.

Sunny couldn’t answer, wasn’t sure what to say. She couldn’t express herself that well. Maybe she was also afraid of Snake’s answer. She tried hard to calm herself, but was unable to do so. She also felt people’s stares on her, heard someone whisper how much of an ungrateful child she was. She knew the meaning of this word, wished she wouldn’t now. Hal had mentioned that she didn’t seem like a four year old a few times. How was a four year old supposed to act? She had no idea.

When Snake picked her up she was surprised. Her tiny hands automatically wrapped around his neck, and when he put a hand on her back the sobs came. She couldn’t stop it at all, but instead of scolding her Snake just gently rocked her and rubber her back. “It’s okay.” He whispered, only for her to hear. Sunny thought he knew what she had been thinking. She wasn’t sure why, but it was a nice thought.

He smelled differently from Jack or Hal, she noticed. She couldn’t name what she smelled but it felt nice. Comfortable. She slowly calmed down after a while, but Snake didn’t put her back into the cart even when he walked around to grab more items.

“I-I can help…” Sunny muttered after a moment, met the skeptical gaze of Snake. “Really!” She insisted.

She then was set to the ground and handed a grocery list with awful handwriting. But even though she couldn’t read it properly she was determined to find the items on the list. Snake followed her through the store never let the distance get more than a few steps as he watched Sunny walking through aisles and pull out the items she could reach. She handed them to him and waited until he had packed them into the cart, then she turned and was greeted by the bright packaging of cereal boxes. She had never had those. In fact a few days ago it had been the first time she had ever had something other than that indefinable food she was given at the place she used to be at.

“Want one of those?” Snake asked her. Sunny wondered why he could read her thoughts but came to the conclusion that magicians might exist after all and nodded sheepishly. She had never asked for anything before. It was a strange feeling.

“Pick one.” Snake smiled at her. “Hal loves that stuff, so if you don’t like it, It won’t go to waste.”

A bright smile crossed Sunny’s lips has she grabbed the bright red package with a huge bee on it and shoved it into the cart. Snake then put milk into the cart and soon enough they were out of the store again, Sunny proudly carrying her cereal box with the bee on it while trying to step into the footprints other people had left there.

She couldn’t wait to get home and try out her new possession.


	11. 11th December

Hal leaned against Snake on the couch, enjoying the silence even though Sunny wasn’t annoying at all. She was always quiet and barely even spoke to anyone. Hal assumed that now that she had settled in and routine began to form, things stopped being exciting.  She had realized that she would stay here for a while, possible forever. Until she was old enough to move out, when the patriots were defeated. Whenever that would be.

A yawn sounded next to him and the war blanket was moved over his shoulders when an arm wrapped around him and a head rested on his shoulder. If this position wouldn’t cause such terrible neck pains he would have stayed like this forever. But Hal eventually had to move, he knew that. Still, for now he enjoyed being so close to his friend.

A few more minutes passed then Snake spoke silently. “I could get used to this.”

“To what?” Hal asked curiously. He didn’t dare to move, was feeling way to comfortable.

“Having a child.”

Hal chuckled. “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”

“But if things get hairy again, we need a safe place for her.”

Hal nodded, sighed silently. Of course they had a few safe houses but none of them were fit for a four year old, not to mention secure enough to keep harm away from her. “We’ll just take her along, let her stay with me.” Hal suggested.

“You think that works out? You’re also in danger when things get bad.” Snake reminded him.

“You usually get rid of them before they get to me.” Hal sighed.

Snake lifted his head, rolled his eyes and kissed the cheek of his friend. “You think I’d let them get to you?”

“Not when you have a choice.”

“Damn right.” Snake whispered now, his voice a low rumble in Hal’s ear that sent a shiver down his spine.

“Is the girl asleep?” He then asked silently.

“She was when I checked on her.” Hal replied, yelped in surprise when Snake shot up from the couch, jumped over it and closed the bedroom door before he hurried back to the couch and almost tackled Hal when he jumped back over the backrest.

Hal needed a second to understand what Snake was planning, but when cool hands snaked under his shirt, he had a very good idea and only pulled the blanket over them so they wouldn’t freeze.


	12. 12th December

Hal watched the little girl curled up on the couch sleeping peacefully. Sunny had played with a tiny robot toy he had built just to entertain her and was now exhausted, hugging a pillow to her chest as she slept the day away. Again he thought of his sister, but shoved the thought far away. This was Sunny, not Emma.

He grabbed one of the woolen blankets that seemingly kept lying around everywhere. They really needed to stop buying blankets and actually start heating the place, but for some reason the thought of huddling next to Snake was way more comfortable than sitting next to a heater.

Carefully he placed the blanket over the girl, making sure not to wake her in the process. Snake handed him a coffee mug not much later, an expression on his face that Hal didn’t like.

“What happened?”

Snake shook his head. He settled down on the couch with his cell phone in his hand. “The Kid sent me some weird message.”

“Jack?” Hal asked silently, winced when Sunny stirred. He wasn’t sure if she had heard the name or if it was just coincidence. He looked at Snake’s phone and the message that seemed to be encrypted. Hal reached for pen and paper on the coffee table and scribbled the message down.

“I never thought he’d be the type to do this.”

Snake shrugged. “Me neither.”

Hal huddled up in another blanket and brooded over the weird combination of letters on the paper. Snake watched him for a while and turned on the TV and zapped through all the channels before turning it off again. Sunny slowly sat up then, yawned and slipped off the couch to head to the bathroom.

Snake wasn’t surprised anymore how independent that little girl was. In fact he was sure she could care for herself completely if she would have had to. She wasn’t scared of bugs, she cleaned up anything she played with, even when she spilled milk or cereals, this girl never left any trace behind. Snake did wonder why she was like that. Something was unusual about it.

While he was thinking about it Sunny headed to the kitchen and came back with the shopping list, looking for a pen. She found one on the coffee table and carefully scrawled ‘soap’ onto the list. While she was at it she also added toilet paper and ‘More bee cereals’.

Snake chuckled silently when he saw that, was impressed at her somewhat shaky but otherwise quite tidy handwriting.

“More bee cereals?” Snake asked with a smile. Sunny nodded eagerly. “Uncle Hal a-ate so m-much of it!”

Hal ducked when Sunny glared at him. Her expression softened after a moment and she climbed back onto the couch, occupying the small space between Hal and Snake. “I-i-it’s c-cold.” She explained, collected the remote from the couch where Snake had left it just minutes ago and turned to TV back on. After she had switched to her favorite channel she climbed under the blanked and leaned against Snake.

While she did so she caught a glance at Hal trying to solve the encrypted message. “D-d-did Jack s-send th-this?” she asked curiously.

“Apparently.” Hal muttered without ever taking his eyes off the paper.

“I c-can s-solve it.” Sunny insisted and reached for the pen and the paper. “Jack t-told me h-how.”

Snake lifted an eyebrow. He never considered Jack to be stupid, but this seemed so unlikely that he was sort of surprised when Sunny solved the message in a few seconds.

“H-He w-wrote ‘I’m fine, Sunny’.” Sunny read aloud. Snake and Hal both noted that Sunny’s stutter did not come through when she read.

“So he was sending you a message?”

Sunny nodded. “I-I asked him.”

“How…?” Hal was now curious.

“I-I u-u-used Snake’s p-phone.”

Snake ran a hand through his hair. “Sunny you need to keep your hands away from my phone. This isn’t a toy.” He scolded her, harsher than intended.

Sunny froze, eyes wide and uncertain, glistening for a second. “I-I know…” She whispered, bit her trembling lip when she slipped off the couch again and retreated to the corner with her set of teacups she hadn’t touched in days. She still didn’t, hid herself under a blanket and didn’t move a hair for several minutes.

“…You shouldn’t have-“ Hal muttered, uncertain and slightly confused at Sunny’s reaction.

“She can’t just use things without permission, especially not my phone. It’s bad enough that I have to use this thing.” Snake sighed.

“That’s neither her nor my fault.” Hal reminded him. “She knows what she’s doing.”

“Until she doesn’t and unintentionally ruins _this_.” Snake raised his voice now, Hal glared at him for it.

“And what do you suggest?” Hal asked, harsh and on edge.

Snake sunk back into the couch with a sigh. “Rules.”

“Fine.” Hal hissed. “I don’t know what place she came from, but from what I learned is that her whole daily routine was filled with rules from the moment she woke to the moment she went to bed.”

“I know.”

“Leave her be. She isn’t meaning any harm.”

Snake grumbled. “That’s the point. She’s smart, but naïve.”

“I-I-I’m n-n-not!” Sunny hissed from under the blanket, reminding both men that she was present and heard every single word. Furiously she freed herself from the blanket and stared at them with a face red from anger and tear filled eyes.

“Sunny…” Hal tried but was ignored when the girl grabbed the blanket and rushed into the bedroom. Seconds later she came back, headed to the front door and put her shoes on.

Snake and Hal both jumped off the couch and rushed over to her. “Where do you think you’re going?” Snake asked, now even harsher than before.

“Jack.” Sunny growled, put on her tiny coat and the scarf. She glared at the hat, but didn’t take it when she turned to the door and gripped the door handle. That was when Snake picked her up and was about to carry her back to the living room.

But instead of calmly complying the girl tried to wrestle him away, kicked and screamed and scratched at his face. Hal was surprised that Sunny was even capable of losing her temper like that. “You’re mean!” she yelled, “You always talk behind my back! You don’t take me serious at all!”

Hal briefly noted that Sunny spoke perfectly, before he realized the weight of her words and his insides twisted. He hadn’t thought that Sunny had been this attentive to their conversations.

“Sunny!” Snake now hissed, voice a loud rumble that immediately shut the girl up. “We don’t want you to leave.”

Hal nodded and came closer when Sunny frowned at Snake. “B-b-but you s-s-said…” she trailed off, tears forming in her eyes and threatening to roll down her cheeks. Snake winced at the sight. This was the second time he had made her cry.

“I want you to ask before you use my things, got that?”

Sunny sniffed and nodded. “I-I d-d-don’t w-want the b-bad g-guys to c-come here…” She explained.

“You wanted to know how Jack was doing.” Hal concluded.

“I’m sorry.” Snake apologized, hugged the girl tightly. “What I said wasn’t very mature.”

Sunny wrapped her arms around him and nodded. “Y-y-you were really m-mean.” She muttered. “A-and y-you too Uncle Hal.”

Hal chuckled and scratched his head. “True… we’re both sorry. See, the bad guys are always just a few steps behind. It’s hard to let our guard down.” He tried to explain.

Sunny nodded in agreement. “Jack s-said that t-too.”

 

 


	13. 13th December

Snake sighed when Sunny demanded another bedtime story. Just a few days ago he had started doing this and Sunny seemed to like to hear about toned down versions of a ‘legendary hero’ saving the world. Hal had given him a raised eyebrow for that, but soon enough he just accepted it and as long as Sunny slept peacefully, he wasn’t too worried about it.

Snake was just explaining a tight situation about having to run really fast and hiding inside lockers when Hal leaned against the doorframe to watch them. Sunny was sitting in bed, excited to hear the stories, demanding to hear more and more.

Snake eventually had nothing more to tell her for the night and smiled at her. “That’s all for tonight.”

Sunny hung her shoulders but nodded and cuddled up in her bed, that was when she noticed something under her pillow. Confused she pulled it out and realized it was a plush teddy bear. “That’s from Hal.” Snake told her.

“I-i-it’s fluffy.” Sunny whispered and hugged it tightly. “Th-thank you!”

Hal smiled. “You’re welcome.” He crouched down next to Snake and kisses Sunny’s hair. He had started to do that about the time Snake began with the stories. Routine.  Sunny didn’t sleep well most nights. She would toss and turn and usually Hal or Snake had to put the blanked back over her when they woke up in the morning.

But things seemingly got more peaceful now. Hal hopes that the girl would stop having back dreams and just enjoy the life she had now. Still, he was very curious about the time she had spent with the patriots. Snake kissed Sunny’s forehead after Hal had pulled away and wished her a good night before he stood and left the room with his friend, leaving the door open just enough for Sunny to see that there was still light in the living room.

When they both headed for the couch Hal suddenly stopped and grabbed Snake’s sleeve. He leaned in to get a closer look at his friend and adjusted his glasses before he frowned deeply. “You’re getting gray hair.”

Snake chuckled and sat down on the couch. “Must be the stress.” He joked.

Hal laughed silently and sat down next to him. “I wonder when I’ll get gray hair.”

“Who knows.”


	14. Chapter 14

Hal frowned when cold hands touched his arm. The hand were definitely too tiny to be of his friend, so he assumed it was Sunny after a moment of confusion. The girl sniffled as if she had cried; he could barely see her outline in the darkness.

“Sunny?” Hal asked silently. “What’s wrong?”

The girl was silent or a moment, long enough for Hal to sit up and switch on the nightstand lamp that was actually just a desk lamp. Snake had let him have it so he would stop running into the furniture if he had to get up at night, be it because inspiration was striking or he had to use the bathroom. Snake definitely could navigate better in the darkness than Hal could.

One the light was on; Sunny’s brown eyes looked at him with a heartbreaking expression. He came to the conclusion that she had had a nightmare, but wasn’t too sure about it.

“U-u-um…” She chewed on her lip. “It’s c-c-cold…”

Hal winced, Sunny had been freezing. Without even thinking twice he grabbed his blanket and put it over her shoulders to warm her up, then he stood and finally turned the heater on. “I’m sorry.” He whispered to the girl. Sunny just nodded and instead of heading back to her bed she climbed onto Hal’s bed and crawled in the middle of it, he back pressed against Snake’s who grumbled in response and Sunny held her breath for a second. Then when Hal chuckled Sunny giggled silently and curled up in the bed.

Hal grabbed one of the blankets from the living room and turned off the lights to continue sleeping. “Good night Sunny.”

“Good N-n-n-night Uncle Hal.”


	15. Chapter 15

Sunny carefully eyed the flat cardboard in front of her. It had a strange smell and when Snake opened it, Sunny could see something that looked like it was edible, but she wasn’t too sure. Snake put a plate in front of her and a slice of the strange object onto it.

“Never had pizza?” He asked her with an amused chuckle.

Sunny shook her head. She had read about pizza, but she had never seen a real one in front of her. When Snake settled down at the dining table she noticed that Hal was nowhere in sight. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen him at all today. Confused she turned around, was about to call for him when Snake spoke.

“He won’t come out of bed today.” Snake smiled.

“W-why n-n-not?” Sunny frowned, concern displaying on her face.

“He caught a cold.”

Sunny relaxed. She had read about various kinds of illnesses. And Colds were nasty but not dangerous. Still, that meant that food would be pizza today. Yet, after taking a few bites, Sunny decided that pizza wasn’t so bad.

“D-d-do you h-h-have cr-“ Sunny grumbled, trying to force the word out but it refused to form. Upset she slipped off the chair and grabbed pen and paper and scrawled ‘crayons’ onto it.  “I s-s-saw them in an a-a-advertisement.”

Snake shook his head, sighed. “We don’t have anything like that.”

Sunny resisted the urge to pout and decided to find a different way to accomplish what she had in mind.

After she had finished her slice of Pizza she put her plate in the sink and headed to the living room, armed with all pens she could find and a stack of printer paper. While Snake did the dishes he kept peeking into the living room to see what sunny was doing. The girl was lying on the ground on a blanket, and carefully scribbled onto the paper. Her feet in the air, swinging in the rhythm of the tune she hummed. The tune sounded familiar to Snake but he couldn’t place it. While he was drying the dishes with a towel he had the tune stuck in his hand and doubted it would ever fade.

Sunny then suddenly jumped to her feet and dashed into the kitchen to show Snake what she had done.

“Potatoes?” Snake asked, somehow clueless. He scolded himself internally when Sunny’s big smile turned into a very serious frown.

“No, Snake.” Sunny hung her shoulders in defeat. “Th-This is y-you,” She pointed to the big shape that looked like a bearded potato. “A-and th-this is uncle Hal,” Her finger wandered to the shape with two big circles for eyes. “A-and th-this is m-me.” There was a blue potato shape in the middle that, apart from size didn’t look very much like Sunny at all.

“Oh.” Snake muttered. “That looks really good.” He tried, but Sunny couldn’t be fooled by his act. “N-No. Th-this is not g-g-good. Yet.” She scrunched up her nose and huffed. “B-but uncle Hal w-will l-like it.”

Snake didn’t add what he was thinking, but somehow he found Sunny’s idea cute.


	16. Chapter 16

Sunny stood on her footstool in the kitchen, humming while she cleaned the two plates she and Snake had used earlier. Snake had went out to buy something-he hadn’t said what- and so Sunny was alone in the Kitchen, cleaning up what she could. She had the laptop Hal had given her on the counter open with carious internet sites, one of them with how to make tea. She had found teabags that were not expired yet and while she waited for the tea to be ready she cleaned up whatever else was not clear yet.

Hal had left the bedroom for a few minutes to use the bathroom and then retreated right away again. When she looked at the clock on the laptop she hopped off the footstool and shoved it back to where the tea was, climbed back up on it and took the teabag out and placed it on a small plate she had set aside for that. Carefully she took the hot cup and climbed off the stool, then slowly made her way to the bedroom.  As expected, Hal was sleeping again. Sunny had read that sleeping was best when sick and so she let him be.

She placed the cup on the nightstand and climbed onto the bed to pull the blanket over the man. while she was at it she took a look at his sleeping face. She giggled when Hal batted at a stray strand of hair that tickled his face.

When Sunny heard the door open and close she hopped off the bed and dashed back into the living room to help snake with whatever he had bought. It was two paper bags that looked rather heavy.

“I w-w-will help!” She declared and  held out her arms to accept the bags into her arms.

Snake chuckled when he took the lighter bag of the two and gave it to Sunny. Sunny carefully made her way into the kitchen and placed the bag on the ground, waited for Snake to follow before she closed the door and opened the Fridge to put in anything that needed to go there. She took her footstool again and pushed it to the fridge, happily sorted in what Snake handed to her.

“Smells like tea.” Snake noted after he had handed Sunny a packet of butter and a loaf of bread.

“I m-made t-tea for uncle Hal; Snake, b-b-bread does not g-g-go into the fr-fridge.” Sunny sighed as if she had told him a thousand times and shoved the bread onto the counter to take the milk from Snake.

“You made tea all by yourself?”

Sunny nodded and sorted a slice of cheese into the fridge. “I-I just h-had to l-l-look up ins-instructions.”

Snake shook his head with a proud smile “if this continues you can take over the housework completely.” He joked. Sunny didn’t seem too eager to do that.

“N-No. E-everyone n-needs to sh-share the ch-chores.”

“But Hal isn’t doing anything at the moment.” Snake told her, testing her. He wanted to know how she solved this question.

Sunny sighed once more and shut the fridge. “H-he will wh-when he is n-not s-sick anymore.”

Snake nodded slightly. “You’re right. You can go play now, You were a great help.”

To Snake’s surprise Sunny shook her head. “I-I c-can help m-more!”


	17. Chapter 17

Hal brooded over a complicated software bug, still in bed but now utterly bored. A cold knocking him out that badly was quite rare and lying around doing nothing was not to his liking either. Snake and Sunny kept poking their heads into the bed room to see what and how he was doing. Sunny had now joined him and was playing a jump and run game on _her_ laptop, huddled close to him and making frustrated noises from time to time.

“You need to wait until the very last moment before you jump over that.” Hal told her after Sunny growled and Hal was a little afraid that she would throw the laptop around. While he still had one spare, they were quite expensive and with their lack of funding, buying anything expensive was not going to happen.

“I-It worked!” Sunny exclaimed after a moment. “Th-Thank you!”

“Of course.” Hal smiled, getting frustrated at the bug he was facing.

Sunny put her laptop aside and looked at his screen. She watched him for a moment, then tilted her head slightly. “No. G-go up a b-b-bit.”

Hal scrolled up a few lines, frowned at what Sunny was trying to do. Before he knew it the girl had taken the laptop from his hands and placed it on her lap, typing into the device at rapid speed. Hal could barely follow her.

“Sunny?”

“Shh!” she hissed, eyes glued on the screen, following the lines as they passed by at a speed that made the man dizzy.

He sighed, moved the blanket away and was about to get up when Snake appeared at the door. He didn’t look very happy.

“Hal…” Snake whispered, obviously to not get Sunny’s attention. Hal wondered why when he left the bedroom and closed the door. Snake then showed his phone to him.

“What’s up?” Hal wanted to know in confusion when he looked at the phone.

The message was full of spelling errors, but the meaning became very clear to Hal after a few seconds. _‘Got caught!’_

“Is this from-“Hal asked silently.

“Jack.” Snake hissed, glaring at the phone. “I don’t think this was supposed to get sent to us.”

“But what if it was?” Hal nervously bit his lip. “M-maybe he’s asking for help-“

Snake gripped the phone tightly, making it creak in protest at the strong grasp. “Damn it, kid!” he hissed.

Before Hal could say anything more, Snake had already turned to the hallway and put shoes on. “You can’t just go out there-“

Instead of answering Snake put a scarf on and the coat, grabbed his gun and shook his head to himself.

“Snake!” Hal yelled now. “You don’t even know where he is!”

“That’s what I’m going to find out!” Snake grabbed the door handle, opened the door a crack.

“Dave!” Hal was upset, fists clenched and face flushed.

“Hal…” Snake sighed, held up his phone. “I’ll be back by midnight.”

“Even when you don’t find him?”

“Yeah.”

“Promise it.” Hal’s voice was forceful, allowing no backtalk.

Snake hung his shoulders, but nodded once. “I promise, Hal.”

“ **Be Careful**.” Hal made sure to make it clear that he wanted Snake to be as careful as possible. “Don’t bring them here.”


	18. Chapter 18

CHOS 18

Hal paced in the living room, waiting for his friend. It was now past midnight and he hadn’t showed up, not given him a life sign. Hal hated these situations, remembered why he had enjoyed the quiet life.  Earlier Sunny had found a few Christmas ornaments in the stairway when she had insisted on sweeping it. Hal knew she only did that to see if Snake had come home. But then she was too distracted hearing about Christmas and how people celebrated it to think about Snake. Sunny had googled all about it, in the end knew more about traditions and how to cook Christmas dinner than Hal had ever bothered to learned. And the presents. Sunny told him she didn’t understand the meaning of giving each other presents. When Hal told her that he didn’t really know that either, Sunny giggled at him.

Now she was asleep, had held his mouth shut when he tried to sing a lullaby for her. ‘no singing!’ she had made that very clear when her small hands batted at his face and held his lips tightly shut. He did get the hint and instead told her a story about giant robots and one man trying to save the world from it. He never knew if sunny got that these stories were real, but if she didn’t it was better that way. He didn’t want to pull her into this any deeper than she was already. Being held captive by the patriots was most likely the worse that could happen.

Hal flinched when a key scratched at the door. He held his breath, hope filling him. Snake was coming back, and he was most likely alright. If anything bad had happened he would have contacted him. Probably. But when the door opened, Hal did not see the brown hair he had expected. There was a blond head, bowed down, looking kind of limp. Hal took a step backwards, mind not quite processing what was happening. He reached for the spare gun under one of the chairs- it was a miracle sunny hadn’t found that yet- when the door opened further and finally revealed the face Hal had waited to see.

“Give me a hand.” Snake growled as he pulled the other person inside. Hal rushed over to him, shut the door, then grabbed the legs of the other man and helped snake carry him to the couch. “Damn it, kid.” Snake hissed.

“W-What happened?” Hal asked with wide eyes, gaze wandered from Snake and the other person who undoubtedly was Jack.

Snake grabbed his cigarettes, thoughtlessly lit one in the living room, but Hal was too busy with trying to sort the questions in his head, to really comment on it. Sunny would later.

“That’s what I’d like to know. Found him running from whatever scoundrels he had gotten on his ass.”

“That doesn’t sound like something we’d get involved in.” Hal muttered.

“They were hired by someone, most likely to get rid of him. But who and what, I have no idea.”

Hal sighed, leaned against the couch. “He should stay here for a few days…”

Snake scoffed. “As if he’d listen to us.” He shook his head and turned around, then noticed the two Christmas ornaments sunny had arranged on the dead plant Hal wanted to throw out months ago.

“He’s probably gone by daylight again- What’s that?” he pointed to the dead plant.

“Sunny found them. I had to tell her a bit about Christmas.”

“We’re not even celebrating that.” Snake commented with a lifted eyebrow.

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that.”

Snake sighed. “You’re hopeless, Hal.”

 


	19. Chapter 19

Hal grumbled when he woke up, only slowly remembering that he was sitting in the living room leaned against the couch for whatever reason. He had fallen asleep with the laptop next to him, open with something he couldn’t quite remember looking at. It took him a few more seconds to realize he wasn’t wearing his glasses.  While he reached out to search for them he heard something shatter in the kitchen and a girl voice say “S-S-Sorry!”  

Hal rubbed his stiff neck, too tired to think about what Sunny had broken, it didn’t matter anyway. The girl was already cleaning it up. Once he had finally found the glasses on the coffee table he also saw that someone had put a blanket over him. Was Snake still sleeping? The clock on his laptop told him otherwise. Snake would be wide awake at nine am. He never slept in. But where was he?

Slowly Hal stood, jumped back with a surprised yelp at the person on the couch. Then he remembered why he had fallen asleep there. With a frown he eyed the younger male from head to toe, he was breathing, that was good. Overall he looked like he just needed to sleep, face buried in the couch cushion, arm hanging out, fingertips touching the carpet on the ground. Seemed like he was too out to care about that. The watch he was wearing had stopped, Hal then noticed. He briefly wondered why he even paid attention to that and then grabbed his laptop to join Sunny in the kitchen.

“G-g-good M-M-Morning Uncle Hal.” She greeted him when she threw away the shards of whatever had broken. It looked like one of the many cups they had. The tea on the ground suggested that as well.

“S-Sorry. It S-s-slipped.”

Hal shook his head as he put the laptop on the dining table. “You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

Sunny held up her reddened hand. “It-it’s not too bad.” She told him, but Hal could see that she wasn’t too happy with the pain this had brought upon her. He picked her up and sat her on the counter next to the sink and turned on the cold water. “Here, hold it under this.” He told her silently.

“B-B-But-“ Sunny helplessly protested and pointed to the still wet floor with her other hand.

“I’ll clean that up, it’s okay Sunny.”

Sunny grumbled but didn’t comment on it.

“Do you know where Snake is?”

“G-G-Getting f-f-food.”

“Again?” Hal asked in disbelief. They never had to buy this much before. Then again living on pizza and soda alone was not the healthiest lifestyle.

Sunny nodded.

Hal sighed, grabbed the mop and wiped the floor clean, then gave Sunny a new cup and let her go about her business when she decided that her hand didn’t hurt that much anymore.

Hal almost fell over his feet when suddenly the man on the couch appeared in the Kitchen. He looked really tired and kind of run down. “Hey.” He greeted Hal, his face not showing much of a reaction until his eyes met Sunny’s.

The girl quickly set the cup on the counter and rushed up to him to hug him. “Y-y-you’re a-awake!”

Hal watched the two, how Jack idly ran a hand over Sunny’s hair as if he had done it a thousand times. “Sorry, I keep getting you two in trouble. I’ll be gone before you know it-“

“Hold it.” Hal said firmly then, his voice taking on an edge he was surprised at. “You’re going to get yourself killed if you continue like this.”

“Like what?”

Hal threw his arms up. “You know what I mean. Do you know how long you were out?”

“Look,” The younger male sighed. “I didn’t mean to send that message to Snake.”

“But you did and now you’re here. And you’re staying.”

Jack scoffed grimly. “What, you gonna ground me?”

“I patched you up.” Hal told him as he turned to the fridge and opened it. “Hit your head pretty badly.”

“It’s nothing-“

“I wouldn’t call a graze nothing. That could have killed you.”

Jack was about to fire back a retort when Snake entered the apartment and squeezed his way past the younger mal. “Good to see you up, kid.” He commented silently as he put a paper bag on the counter and helped Hal sort the items.

“Stop calling me that.”

“Kid?”

“I’m not a kid.”

Snake grumbled into the paper bag as he pulled out a t-shirt that was obviously for Sunny. “I’ll stop when you stop acting like one.”

 


	20. Chapter 20

Sunny frowned at the weird contraption Hal was putting together in the living room next to the balcony door.

“W-w-what are you d-d-doing?” The girl eyed the ladder suspiciously, and didn’t seem too convinced that whatever he was doing was a good idea. Until she saw the box with Christmas ornaments and the ball of yarn next to it. There were also fake twigs that looked like a mock up of a Christmas tree and wire.

“You’ll see.” Hal smiled at her.

“You’ll hurt yourself.” David sighed when he walked past him and onto the balcony where their temporary roommate was sitting on a plastic chair in the freezing cold. Sunny couldn’t hear what they were talking about when Snake closed the door from the outside, but they were smoking. Something Sunny really didn’t like.

She watched Hal for a few more seconds then, huffed and pushed open the door of the balcony.

“That doesn’t mean- Sunny, what are you doing here?” Snake asked in confusion. “Go back inside its cold.

“Y-y-y-you’re s-smoking!”

“Exactly, that’s why you should stay inside.” Snake told her.

Sunny’s face turned red in anger when she gripped the packet of cigarettes and tossed it over the edge of the balcony.

“Sunny!” Snake sounded angry now.

Jack had caught the packet before it could fall down, gave Sunny a glare that was probably way harsher than intended. Sunny rewarded both of them with another glare and stomped back inside.

Hal had watched the whole scene and was not sure how to respond. He was tangled in Christmas lights and ornaments, twigs sticking to his pullover but Sunny didn’t bother to look at him when she grabbed her laptop, typed a few things into it and then went back to the balcony. Wordlessly she sat the device on the ground inside, pushed open the door and then let a documentary play about how smoking kills.

“Sunny…” Hal sighed, the girl already on the way to the kitchen, for whatever reason.

Snake was now crouching in front of the laptop and widely typed random keys to stop the documentary from playing.

“Hal, how do I stop this?”

“You need to pause it-“ Hal told him.

“Where?”

“Space bar.” Jack sighed.

“What?” Snake frowned, by then Hal was trying to get off the ladder but only managed to fall down with the whole thing. Alarmed the other two jumped to their feet.

“I’m fine, nothing happened-“ Hal sighed and freed himself from what he had trapped himself in.

Sunny peeked into the living room, alerted by the noise. She made sure that Hal was alright, then retreated back into the kitchen.

A few moments later the video was paused, Hal placed the ladder back where it had been before and sat down on the ground with a heavy sigh.

It took an hour until Hal had explained what he wanted to do with the ladder, half an hour more to actually put all the twigs and ornaments onto it.

“It l-l-looks like a chr-chrimast-tree.” Sunny commented when she had finally dared to leave the kitchen, carefully balancing a tray in her hands with four cups of what smelled like hot chocolate.

“Th-that’s b-better than s-s-smoking.” She told the three males in the room and placed the tray on the coffee table in the living room.

She would get them to stop smoking. One way or another.


	21. Chapter 21

Sunny was curled up under the ladder contraption disguised like a Christmas tree, sitting on pillows and blankets and playing video games. She seemed distracted but carefully watched what was going on in the living room. How Snake had his feet on the table while reading that book he had read at least a dozen times since Sunny was here. And Hal typing into his laptop while cursing silently at times, and then Jack who sunny was glad was there, but all he did was sit on the balcony all day and stare into the distance. The girl had tried to ask him about what was wrong, but he only avoided her questions and eventually she had given up.

The girl jumped slightly when Snake placed a cup of hot chocolate in front of her. It had marshmallows swimming in it and each of them looked like the face of a snowman. Sunny squealed at the sight, eyes bright and a ‘thank you’ already on her lips.

“Figured you’re like that.” Snake smiled at her. He watched when Sunny turned to look outside the window to where Jack was standing, hands on the rail of the balcony. “He needs one too, huh?” Snake concluded.

“I-it’s c-c-cold.” Sunny nodded. When Snake stood to leave, she grabbed his sleeve. “Snake… w-w-why is he so s-sad?”

Snake shook his head. Sunny couldn’t tell if he didn’t know or didn’t want to tell her. “He didn’t tell me.”

Sunny hung her tiny shoulders, suddenly dead set on making that man on the balcony happy again. She removed the blankets and the laptop from her lap, casted everything aside and scrambled over to the box of crayons Snake had eventually bought for her.

Snake watched her for a while, then just took her cup and placed it next to her. “It’s getting cold.”

“Th-thanks.” Sunny muttered without looking up from what she was doing.

Snake walked over to Hal then, settled down next to him. “It’s weird.” Hal muttered almost immediately.

“What is?”

The younger male nodded to the balcony. “Just what in the world happened to him?”

Snake shrugged. “He’s not telling and I’m not prying. Maybe Sunny can do something.”

“Never knew he could be so quiet.”

Snake scoffed. “His thoughts certainly aren’t. Gotta keep an eye on him, feels like he’ll jump sooner or later… He’s staring at the skyline as if he’s trying to get absorbed in it.”

He got elbowed in the side at that. “Don’t say that, Dave.”

“You never thought about that?” Snake asked instead. “Just end it then and there?”

Hal shook his head. “Can’t say I have. Did you?”

Snake averted his eyes and left Hal without an answer, but the silence was all Hal needed to understand.

“How’d you overcome it?”

Snake shrugged. “Don’t remember.”

“Really?”

“You might have played a part in that.”

Hal frowned, then blushed and nervously pushed his glasses back up. He cleared his throat but didn’t say anything, almost squeaked when the balcony door opened and their guest stepped into the warm living room. Sunny quickly gathered her paper and tried to hide it.

“D-d-don’t look! It-it’s not d-d-done yet!”


	22. Chapter 22

Snake woke to Sunny pulled on his arm. Alarmed he sat up, confused and not quite sure what was happening. At first he thought someone had broken in, but something told him that this wasn’t the case.

“What’s up, kid…?”

Sunny’s eyes looked so frightened in the darkness of the bedroom that was only illuminated by light from the living room. Why was the door open at all? And how late was it? Snake usually was first to be awake.

Instead of telling him what was going on, Sunny just tried to drag him out of the bed. Maybe she was too frightened to speak, but what had frightened her so much? Hal was still asleep when Snake finally made his way out of the bed. Sometimes Snake was envious of his ability to sleep through any kind of noise.

In the living room it didn’t take snake two seconds to piece together what had scared Sunny. It was the blonde more or less permanent guest who was hunched over on the couch, gasping for air and making sounds that would have frightened anyone who wasn’t used to it.

“It’s okay, Sunny.” Snake sighed and walked up to the other man. “Kid,” He tried, crouched down in front of the man while pushing the coffee table aside.

“W-what happened…?” Sunny asked curiously yet still frightened.

Snake shook his head. “It just looks bad. It’s okay, Sunny.”

The girl wasn’t convinced and then snake noticed the pile of blankets next to Jack. Sunny had obviously tried to calm him down, but failed. She had no idea what she was facing, of course she was scared.

It took a few more seconds of silence until Jack finally reacted to Snake’s voice. “Sorry.” He apologized both to him and to Sunny.

“It’s fine.” Snake sighed. “Nightmares?”

A slow nod was his answer. “…didn’t mean to scare Sunny-“

“I-i-it’s o-okay.” Sunny muttered. “I-I was j-j-just going t-to the b-b-bathroom… b-but…”

Snake ruffled her hair. “Sometimes this just happens.” He shrugged.

The girl nodded, then instead of heading back to her own bed she moved her pillow and blanket into the living room and spread it on the carpet.

“Sunny…” Snake sighed. “Do you really want to sleep there?”

Sunny nodded firmly.

 Snake was too tired to argue and just took her mattress and moved it into the living room so she wouldn’t get cold and sore.

“Good night…” Snake sighed when he turned the lights off and retreated back into the bedroom.

There was a sound that sounded like “night” obviously coming from the male person in the living room, and a tiny almost inaudible “Good night uncle snake.” From the girl.

Snake had a proud smile on his face when he crawled back into the bed, pleasantly surprised to have Hal hug him tightly once he had settled back down.

“What happened?” the engineer asked sleepily.

“Nightmares.” Snake shrugged, suppressed a yawn and wrapped his arms around the other man. “Sunny’s sleeping in the living room. Just thought I’d warn you before you panic or something.”

Hal chuckled silently, but was already asleep again.


	23. Chapter 23

Hal watched Sunny play with origami figures she had created using various tutorials on the internet. She had used any paper she could find, newspaper, notes, even a dollar bill. Colored paper that came from somewhere. At the cardboard, Snake stopped her. Hal wasn’t exactly sure why, but he didn’t question it.

Right now he was sitting on the couch, Snake on the balcony, smoking. Jack was sitting on the ground close to Sunny. The girl had taken joy in positioning various kinds of origami animals on his shoulders and head. Every time he moved she would glare at him, reposition the animals and try to flick them off his shoulders with paper balls she had made much earlier.

Hal was amused by this, also glad Sunny was busy with playing rather than researching who knows what. He had looked through her browser history, but this girl knew how to cover her tracks. Again he almost forgot that she was only four. It felt so strange to him, to have such a mature girl sitting there. Ignoring her actual age and her height, one could have mistaken her for a teenager or even older. Sunny did throw fits at times though. Like a typical child.

However, those fits were barely about candy or not getting what she wanted. Most of the time they were about much more serious things, things children shouldn’t even think about at her age.

“Ow.”

Hal snapped back to reality and watched Jack rub his face as one of the paper balls had obviously hit his face.

“Sorry.” Sunny muttered, highly concentrated on adjusting her aim and flicked the next ball. This time it actually hit an animal and it fell off Jack’s shoulder.

Hal thought she would to this the whole evening, when she stood, stretched and yawned. Quickly she collected everything she had spread in the living room, scrap paper, unfinished origami. Hal didn’t even dare to think about the paper scraps on the ground. The dark wooden floor looked almost white from the distance.

Jack had a much better idea, as he got a broom and was about to swipe everything up when Sunny protested.

“N-NO!” She yelled. “L-let me d-do that!” She held her tiny hands out for the broom and almost snatched it out of his hands when he handed it over to her.

Hal smiled at the confused gaze of the other male in the room, then turned when Snake entered the living room again and closed the balcony door. “It’s damn cold outside.” He growled.

“Y-y-you could s-stop s-smoking.”

“It’s not that easy, you know?” Jack replied instead of Sunny. “I used to smoke too. Took foreeeever to stop.” He spread his arms to emphasize his words, smiled when Sunny laughed.

Snake settled down next to Hal with a strange smile on his face. “Was a good idea to keep him here.”

Hal nodded slowly. He was still surprised that Sunny got along with the blond man this well. “He looks happier too.”

 


	24. Chapter 24

Snake frowned when he found the living room empty the next morning. Sunny was still asleep, he hadn’t expected her there. Everything was dark, but even without turning the lights on he knew that the room was devoid of any human life. It was just a feeling. When he turned the lights on, he sighed. The couch was empty, blanket folded neatly, pillow on top. He felt as if he experienced a Déjà vu.  This time he found no note that said anything.

No message on his phone. Nothing.

“What are you doing, kid…” Snake sighed. He wasn’t sure if he should worry about Jack or not, but Sunny would definitely.

And when the girl showed up just a few minutes later, she definitely searched the whole apartment for the blond man. Twenty minutes later, she had accepted the fact that Jack was not there and retreated under the ladder that mocked any real Christmas tree.

“Why d-did he r-r-run away?” Sunny asked silently, it wasn’t hard to tell that she was heartbroken that her friend had disappeared.

“I don’t know.” Snake grumbled. He was about as upset as Sunny was, but for different reasons. Sunny had lost a playmate; Snake knew too well that people didn’t run for no reason.

Daily life continued as usual even without their guest. Sunny filled up a bowl of cereals and settled down in front of the TV as she flipped through channels. Snake noticed that she kept looking at the front door in hopes that her friend would come back.

Somehow Snake knew he wouldn’t show up again. Maybe never again. There was just something about it that made him feel very melancholic.

Hal just shrugged at the fact that their guest had disappeared, obviously not expecting that he would have stayed for longer than he had. And so they had lunch and dinner and eventually Sunny went to bed again, but her big eyes were sad and full of questions after Hal had said good night and Snake was about to tell her the story he told her every night.

“…T-the bad people… th-they f-found him… y-yes?” The girl asked silently as if afraid that Hal would hear her.

“I don’t know that, Sunny.” He sighed. “But if I hear something I will tell you immediately, you okay with that?”

Sunny nodded, chewed on her lip as her sad eyes casted downwards and she hugged Snake’s arm. “Th-the s-story.” She urged him on, not letting go of him even when he already started telling her about long forgotten adventures with fifty dogs in Alaska.

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done.... sorry for so many delays...  
> BUT i said i'd finish them, and I did. On time. Thank you all for your support, i really appreciate it much more than i show.
> 
> Thank you!  
> And merry christmas!

Sunny squealed when she jumped into the snow outside, happy to be able to go out again and this time with both Snake and Hal. She wasn’t sure where they were going, but Hal had mumbled something about Christmas day  and Sunny was very pleased that it involved taking a walk with both of them. Even when they were holdings hands while trying to hide that fact, Sunny had definitely noticed. She grinned at them and jumped into the deeper snow, then almost disappeared completely into it.

Snake chuckled when he grabbed the girl and pulled her out of the snow. “You okay?”

“Y-yup!” Sunny cheered and proceeded to find more snow to jump in.

Hal grabbed a bit of snow and formed it to a snowball, missed Snake’s head by a hair when the man in question ducked. The snowball hit Sunny instead who immediately gathered up snow and threw it at him, making it rain down on her.

“You need to make a snowball.” Hal explained and showed her how to do it.

Sunny crouched down to make a snowball, when suddenly she jumped at Hal and threw all the snow into his face.

He yelped in surprise, was then chased by Sunny. Snake sighed and shook his head, slowly continuing to walk so the other two would catch up eventually. They were going for a walk to a close by lake that looked rather pretty in the evening. Now the Sun was up, but covered by thick clouds and overall the day looked as if it tried to mourn something. Snake shook his head at the thought and turned to Hal and Sunny.

“I’m going without you.” He declared. Sunny immediately rushed up to him, followed closely by Hal.

When they had reached the lake Snake sat down on a bench, feeling unusually tired all of a sudden. He assumed he was coming down with a cold, paid it no mind. It was nothing to be too worried about.

After a few minutes of resting, he did feel alright again anyway. Hal and Sunny never noticed. Sunny was too busy feeding the ducks. She was surprised that Hal had brought bread along, but now that was forgotten as well.

Snake paced around for a bit, watched them and the few snowflakes that fell down, then his attention got caught by something a little further away. He walked up to it, something red in the snow. It was most likely blood.

Once he had reached it, it was indeed what he thought. The snow was splattered by blood, but nobody in sight. The soil below had been brought up, there had obviously been a fight here. He shook his head and sighed, turned away when he saw something in the corner of his eye. It was white, so he almost didn’t notice, but when he reached out he realized it was one of the origami figures Sunny had made.

A heavy weight settled in his stomach when he picked it up, noticed the blood on the edges. He flinched when Sunny yelled for him to come back ; she wanted to show him something.

He took a deep breath and slipped the origami into his pocket, then turned and headed back to Sunny and Hal, his mind occupied with anything but having fun with them.

He had to tell Hal.

He forced a smile onto his face when Sunny handed him a slice of bread and showed him how to feed the ducks, knew Hal had already noticed that something was off.

He couldn’t tell him here. Not when Sunny was there.


End file.
